badminton

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. A sport played by volleying a shuttlecock back and forth over a high narrow net by means of a light, long-handled racket.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A racquet sport played indoors on a court by two opposing players (singles) or two opposing pairs of players (doubles), in which a shuttlecock is volleyed over a net and the competitions are presided by an umpire in British English and a referee in American English.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A game, similar to lawn tennis, played with shuttlecocks.

n. A preparation of claret, spiced and sweetened.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. An English outdoor game, similar to lawn-tennis, but played with shuttlecocks.

n. A summer beverage, properly a claret-cup made with soda-water instead of plain water and flavored with cucumber.

n. a game played on a court with light long-handled rackets used to volley a shuttlecock over a net

Etymologies

After Badminton, the Duke of Beaufort's country seat in western England.

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Named after Badminton House, an estate in Gloucestershire owned by the Duke of Beaufort, where the game was first played in England. (Wiktionary)

Examples

Families gardened and used their backyards more (the 1930s saw a renaissance in badminton); in the evenings they gathered around the radio, worked on jigsaw puzzles (another 1930s craze), played cards and, of course, Monopoly (an irony-heavy product of the Depression).